Arinze's free-throw shooting has become the figurative elephant in the room

Dennis Nett / The Post-StandardSyracuse's Arinze Onuaku listens to questions from the media prior to his teams taking the floor for practice. In SU's last 18 games, Onuaku is shooting 15.4 percent from the line.

Miami -- It has evolved into a situation akin to the pitcher approaching a no-hitter. As the innings amass and the hits cease to materialize, the pitcher finds ample space to contemplate in the dugout. Teammates refuse to sit by him, to jinx him, to affect his concentration.

For the Syracuse University basketball team, that pitcher is Arinze Onuaku. The junior center has become the figurative elephant in the room. And it's not because he's 6-foot-9 and weighs 275 pounds.

In SU's last 18 games, Onuaku is shooting 15.4 percent from the free throw line. The raw numbers: He's 8-of-52.

His artlessness at the line has become so pronounced that Syracuse crowds cheer robustly when he makes a free throw. In the Orange men's six overtime win over Connecticut last week in New York, Onuaku drained two in a row at a critical juncture of the game and nearly brought down the house at Madison Square Garden.

SU, as a team, shoots .639 as a team from the line. Subtract Onuaku's numbers (he's 36-of-120) and the Orange shoots .695 from the free throw line.

The SU center rooms with Eric Devendorf, whose .789 percentage from the line leads the Orange. Devendorf said Thursday, as SU prepared to play Stephen F. Austin in the NCAA Tournament, that he never approaches Onuaku with free throw shooting suggestions during games.

He's not alone. Onuaku is fully aware of his futility at the line. To bring it up with him, teammates say, only amplifies the angst.

"I think if you talk to him about it, it kind of makes it worse," Devendorf said. "So I just kind of let him do his own thing. In practice, I'll say something to him, like 'Get the ball up' or something like that. But at the end of the day, you kinda gotta let him do his own thing."

"I think when you talk to somebody and keep bothering them about a situation," said Rick Jackson, "it just makes things worse. You can try to talk to him about it, but you don't want to keep bothering him because then he feels like he has to make it because people keep talking to him. When the pressure's off, it's easier to make shots, I think."

On Thursday, in a nearly empty American Airlines Arena, Onuaku stroked free throw after free throw as he laughed and joked with teammates. He and various SU coaches have often huddled at the free throw line during practice to work out a regimen that might translate into success. Onuaku has said throughout the season that he does not consider his ineptitude at the free throw line his personal albatross.

He repeated that assertion Thursday.

"It's not a weight at all," he said. "At the end of the day, I'm a player. If I miss 10 at the line, I feel like I'm going to make the next one. And if not, I'm gonna get it from the field. It's not really a weight to me at all."

He endured a stretch this season where tendinitis in his knee prohibited him from playing the way he prefers. It was difficult, at times, to simply run from one end of the basketball court to the other, say nothing of catching the ball in traffic and powering it to the rim.

But Onuaku said he has healed physically. The knee, he said, "feels great."

Over SU's last 18 games, Onuaku has exhibited moments of brilliant basketball, but his most meaningful contributions occurred during the first half of SU's season. In the Orange men's first 17 games, Onuaku posted five double-doubles. Since then, he's posted one -- a 15-point, 13-rebound effort in the Carrier Dome against Georgetown.

He said that his precipitous decline at the line has not affected his aggression on the court. He does not, he said, fear being fouled and sentenced to the free throw line. He is not, he said, afraid to catch the ball and make an offensive move during critical junctures of the game.

"We really haven't had many games that were close like that where if I get fouled, it would be a problem," Onuaku said. "But when it gets to that point -- and a lot of times we have the lead at that point -- Coach will probably take me out because he knows they're going to foul me. He wants to put the best free throw shooters on the court."

SU coach Jim Boeheim has talked about the perils of leaving Onuaku on the court as games reach the crucial stage. Boeheim must decide whether the risks of leaving Onuaku on the floor outweigh the benefits he brings in terms of rebounds, defense and experience.

Onuaku seems thrilled to be here, in Miami, where the NCAA Tournament begins for the Orange. He looks forward, he said, to testing himself against the better big men of the tournament -- he mentioned Stephen F. Austin's Matt Kingsley (Southland Conference player of the year), Arizona State's Jeff Pendergraph and Oklahoma's Blake Griffin by name.

The free throw issue? He attempts to block it from his brain.

"I just think that when he does get fouled, he just keeps thinking about not missing," Jackson said. "You just keep worrying about the last miss and that's what he does, instead of just clearing his mind and trying to make it."

"It's definitely a mental thing, you know?" Devendorf said. "He went 2-for-2 (against UConn) and that was big right there. But it's definitely just a mental thing because he makes them in practice all the time. If he can just get it out of his head and shoot the ball, he's gonna be fine."